


Averting Darkness

by TardisIsTheOnlyWayToTravel



Series: T-2000 series [4]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Terminator 2: Judgement Day (1991), The Terminator (1984), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Future, Alternate Universe - Robots & Androids, F/M, Get Together, Terminator Darcy Lewis, Terminators, Thor: The Dark World rewrite, ignores Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, other realms
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-31
Updated: 2014-07-31
Packaged: 2018-02-11 04:47:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,293
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2054193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TardisIsTheOnlyWayToTravel/pseuds/TardisIsTheOnlyWayToTravel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Jane,” said Erik. “Where is Jane?”</p><p>“She’s with Thor,” Darcy explained, as she drove. “She walked into another realm through, like, this invisible portal, and came back giving off this weird energy. Thor showed up to find out where she’d gone, and took her back to Asgard with him to see a healer.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Chapter One**

Jane was on a date.

 This was a good sign. If she was considering dating people who were not Thor, her emotional pain must finally be beginning to lessen.

Darcy regretted the necessity of interrupting the date when Jane was showing such progress, but she knew that the Einstein-Rosen Bridge was a high priority that Jane would want to be informed about.

“What are you doing here?” Jane asked, as Darcy took a seat at the table perpendicular to Jane and the unidentified man sitting opposite her.

“Well, I would have called, but you had your phone off,” said Darcy. “Anyway, I showed up at your mom’s house, fully expecting you to be moping around in your pyjamas eating ice cream and obsessing about you-know-who, but you’re not! You’re wearing lady clothes! You even showered, didn’t you? You smell good.”

Darcy scanned Jane’s features, and identified her expression as ‘pained.’ Jane’s date was staring between Jane and Darcy with a fascinated expression.

“Is there a point to all this? Because there really needs to be a point to all this,” said Jane.

“Right. Look at this.” Darcy pulled a large piece of equipment out of her bag and held it out for Jane to see.

“You brought this with you?” Jane asked, and then frowned at the readings she was getting. “It’s malfunctioning.”

“That’s what I said,” Darcy agreed, as Jane thumped the piece of equipment on the table. “But then I thought, what if it’s not?”

“I’m sure it’s nothing.” Jane looked away from Darcy, back at her date. Darcy arranged her expression into a perplexed frown. Jane had remained dedicated to their project, even after her disappointment with Thor. Darcy glanced between Jane and her date.

Darcy calculated the probability that the date was going well, based on Jane and her date’s body language and facial expressions.

_Probability: 37%._

Darcy wondered why Jane was so reluctant to get back to work.

“Doesn’t look like nothing,” she told Jane. “Kind of looks like the readings Erik was rambling about last time he called.”

Jane looked at Darcy.

“John is waiting in the car,” Darcy added helpfully. “He’s going to be pissed if you don’t want to investigate weird scientific phenomena after all. I mean, that was why we moved to London in the first place, right?”

Jane sighed.

“Fine.” She turned back to her date. “I’m really sorry about this, it’s just…”

“Go,” said the date. “It sounds important. Or something.”

Jane offered him an apologetic smile.

“Thank you. It is. And I’m really sorry.”

“Let’s go,” Darcy said, tugging Jane by the arm out of the restaurant.

John had the car idling in the parking lot, changing from radio station to radio station in search of something he liked.

“Finally,” he said, when Darcy climbed into the front passenger seat, leaving Jane to climb into the back seat. “Did you get lost or something?”

“Jane didn’t want to end her date,” Darcy explained, buckling up her seatbelt.

“Date?” John turned around in his seat to stare at Jane. “You were on a date?”

“How did you two even find me?” Jane asked, instead of answering John’s question.

“Tracked the GPS on your phone,” Darcy explained, as John pulled out into the London traffic.

“Man, I hate you,” Jane told Darcy. Darcy identified her expression as ‘resigned.’

“What? It’s not like the date was going well anyway,” Darcy said.

“Just shut up and let John drive,” Jane said darkly.

“About that, where am I going?” John asked.

Darcy wirelessly accessed their GPS coordinates, overlaying their GPS position with the digital copy of a current map of London she’d downloaded before they left New York.

“Right,” Darcy said, and John slammed on the brakes, and sent the car squealing into the next street.

“Left,” Darcy added, and John swung the car wildly into the first street on the left. “Dude, is your only experience driving getaway cars? There’s these things called road rules, you’re supposed to obey them. Try and drive in an orderly fashion. Also slower.”

“Bite me,” said John, but he reduced the vehicle’s speed.

“I have to call Erik,” Jane muttered, going through her purse for her phone. She found it as John roared around another corner, and dialled Erik’s number.

Darcy’s audio sensors easily picked up the voice mail message that Jane received.

“Hi Erik, it’s me. Again,” said Jane, while Darcy gave John further directions. “Where are you? I came here because you said you were onto something and then you vanished.”

John spared a glance from the road to exchange a look with Darcy. Darcy scanned his face, and identified his expression as ‘troubled.’

Jane hung up with a sigh.

“Dr Selvig’s still not answering, huh?” John asked, glancing into the rear view mirror to get a glimpse of Jane’s face.

“It’s not like him,” Jane said, her expression vaguely unsettled.

Silence fell inside the car, broken only by Darcy giving John directions to their destination.

Eventually, John parked the car in front of an abandoned factory.

“Is this it?” John asked. Jane got out of the car.

“Yep, this is it,” Darcy said, her eyes following Jane. “You think she’d be more excited, weird sciency stuff is happening.”

“Man, she needs to get over the whole thing with her alien boyfriend,” said John. “It’s been over a year, and she’s still in a funk.”

“I guess she really loves him,” Darcy said, shrugging to indicate her lack of understanding.

“Yeah, but eventually you’ve got to move on,” said John, watching Jane walk over to the deserted factory. “My mom never got over my dad, I don’t think, but she never let that stop her. She started fighting the day he died, and never stopped.”

“You don’t normally talk about your mom,” Darcy observed. John smiled a little.

“You’d like her, I think.”

“Yeah? Would she like me?”

John looked at Darcy, at that, a grin tugging at his mouth as he looked her over contemplatively.

“She’d freak the fuck out at first,” John said, the grin widening. “But then she’d get used to you.”

“That’s not the same as liking me,” Darcy grumbled, getting out of the car.

John got out of the car as well, and spoke  to Darcy over the top of the car.

“Mom doesn’t really care about whether she likes people,” he said. “It’s more about whether they’re useful or not.” He made a face. “That sounds bad. I mean–”

“It’s okay.” Darcy opened the trunk of the car, grabbing the phase meter. She shut the trunk, and met John’s eyes. “I get it.”

“Yeah,” said John. “I guess you would.”

The two of them walked over to the factory. As they entered the building and joined Jane, Darcy scanned the area. Non-human life-forms took flight, but Darcy ignored them, identifying the sound of footsteps further within the factory. She activated her thermal vision, looking through the walls of the building, and made out three small humanoid forms. They were too small to be adults.

_Analysis results: life forms identified as human juveniles._

“Hey,” Darcy called out, making Jane glance at her quizzically and John tense warily, “come out. We won’t hurt you.”

A moment later a trio of kids stepped into view, watching Darcy and Jane and John warily.

“Are you the police?” one of them asked.

“No, we’re scientists,” Jane responded, her expression softening in response to the children’s appearance. “Well, I am.”

“We just found it,” said one of the other kids.

“Will you show us?” Jane asked.

The kids nodded, and started to walk away. Darcy and the others followed them over to a cement truck. One of the children touched it, and the truck slowly levitated, rotating in the air. Darcy scanned it, searching for indications of advanced technology, but the truck was an ordinary contemporary model without enhancements or modifications.

_Error. Visual input does not comply with known physical laws._

Darcy blinked to indicate confusion, and arranged her features into a puzzled expression.

“Whoah,” John breathed next to her. A scan of his expression showed that he was displaying the emotions ‘disbelief’ and ‘wonder.’ “What the hell?”

“That’s impossible,” said Darcy, watching the cement truck revolving in mid-air. “Trucks don’t levitate. It’s against the laws of physics. This doesn’t compute. I must be seeing things.”

John sent Darcy a concerned look.

“You’re not going to freak out or anything, are you?”

“Define ‘freak out,’” said Darcy.

_Error. Visual input does not comply with known physical laws._

_Run diagnostic check: visual input systems._

John rested his hand on Darcy’s shoulder, and gave her a gentle shake. “You’re not seeing things, okay? That cement truck is definitely floating.”

Nothing was coming up as a malfunction on the diagnostic check so far, and John was apparently seeing the same thing that she was, so Darcy cancelled the diagnostic check before it could finish running.

John and Darcy followed Jane and the children into a stairwell that ran from the buildings top floor down to the ground floor.

One of the kids picked up an old bottle and leaned over the railing into open space. She dropped the bottle. It fell for several floors, as Darcy expected. Then, unexpectedly, it vanished in mid-air.

“Shit,” said John, staring.

“Where’d it go?” Jane wondered aloud. The girl pointed upwards, towards the roof. Jane, Darcy and John all looked up. After a moment the bottle reappeared a few feet from the roof, fell, and vanished again. The sequence repeated itself a couple of times before the girl reached out again and caught the bottle as it fell past.

“That… that’s incredible,” said Jane. Darcy scanned her expression, and identified it as ‘fascinated.’

Jane tried the trick with an empty can lying nearby, but while it disappeared, it didn’t reappear.

“What happened?” Jane asked. The girl shrugged.

“Sometimes they come back, sometimes they don’t.”

“What do you think is happening?” John asked Darcy. “Do you think it’s a doorway to somewhere else?” He gave a quiet snicker. “Are we littering interdimensionally?”

“Maybe,” said Darcy warily. She didn’t have enough data on the phenomenon. “This shouldn’t be possible.”

“I want to try this,” John decided. He picked up an empty juice box and flung it into the centre of the stairwell. It went through the same disappear/reappear sequence as the bottle. John’s expression was gleeful.

Darcy was still holding the phase meter, and Jane pulled it out of her hands to look at the readings. Darcy peered over her shoulder. The readings were highly abnormal. They were also somewhat familiar.

“It’s a warp in space-time,” Darcy observed. She’d seen similar readings before: once, before she was sent back in time, and a second time in New Mexico, two years earlier.

Jane paid Darcy’s words no attention, too focused on the phase meter.

“I haven’t seen readings like this since… since…”

“New Mexico?” Darcy suggested.

“Man, one of these days you really need to fill me in on everything that happened in New Mexico,” John said, shaking his head. “My briefing on your research skipped all the interesting shit.”

At the words ‘New Mexico,’ Jane had sent Darcy a disbelieving look, before she went running up the next flight of stairs.

“Jane? Where are you going?” John called after her.

“Don’t touch anything!” Jane called back, disappearing through a doorway, still holding the phase meter.

“Well,” John said, “at least she’s interested in science, again.”

Darcy activated her thermal vision, tracking Jane’s thermal signature through the building. Then, abruptly, Jane’s thermal signature vanished. Darcy scanned the area where she had disappeared, but there was no sign of Jane’s thermal signature anywhere. Darcy scanned for other life-signals, but there was nothing. Jane was gone.

Darcy grabbed John by the arm, arranging her features into a stricken expression.

“Hey,” John said, and then saw her face. His own expression changed to one that Darcy identified as ‘concerned.’ “Darce?”

“Jane just vanished,” Darcy said, modulating her voice to a worried tone. “I was tracking her with thermal vision and she just… disappeared. Gone.”

“Shit,” said John, already working out what must have happened. “She must have disappeared like the stuff we threw into the stairwell!”

“I’m going after her,” said Darcy. “Stay here, okay?”

“And what if you don’t come back?” John demanded. Darcy was unable to identify the emotion in his voice.

Darcy paused.

“I’ll be back,” she promised, before turning around and walking up the stairs, following the path that Jane had taken before she disappeared.

The abandoned factory was silent and empty around her as Darcy scanned for life-signs.

Then, abruptly, Darcy was standing somewhere else.

Darcy scanned her surroundings. She was standing on a great stone platform within an enormous dark cavern, with a towering column at the centre of it. Markings consistent with the activation of an Einstein-Rosen Bridge surrounded it. Lying at the base of the column was Jane. She wasn’t moving.

Darcy strode over, scanning Jane for signs of life. Jane’s physical indicators indicated unconsciousness.

“Jane?” Darcy knelt on the ground next to her friend, initiating a deeper scan. Jane’s physical indicators were more or less within the normal range for an unconscious human, with one exception.

“What the hell?” Darcy muttered aloud, as she picked up a strange but powerful energy signal emanating from Jane. “Jane, what the hell did you _do_?”

She gently shook Jane’s shoulder, but there was no response.

“Jane!”

Still no response.

Darcy sat back on her heels, and ran through her list of possible options.

_Action selected: wait for human identified as Jane Foster to regain consciousness._

Darcy got to her feet, standing guard over Jane, her gaze constantly scanning the alien surroundings.

Darcy hoped that Jane woke up soon.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**

According to Darcy’s internal clock, it was five hours, seven minutes, and thirty-three seconds later that Jane stirred. Darcy immediately focused her gaze on Jane, scanning her.

Jane’s eyelids fluttered, and she opened her eyes a little, showing signs of disorientation.

“Jane!” Darcy exclaimed. “Get up, we need to leave. _Now_.”

“Darcy?” Jane frowned in bleary confusion, sitting up. Darcy extended a hand, and helped Jane to her feet. Jane’s eyes flickered over their surroundings.

“What–”

“Shut up we can talk about it later,” Darcy ordered, tugging Jane by the hand back the way they had come. Darcy walked five paces, and suddenly they were back in the abandoned factory. Darcy experienced an emotional response that she identified as ‘relief.’

“Darcy? What happened?” Jane asked, looking confused. She tried to pull her hand free of Darcy’s, and Darcy let her go.

“You tell me, Jane,” said Darcy, modulating her voice so that her tone was calm. “You disappeared. I went looking for you, and next thing I know I’m in the Twilight Zone, and you’re lying there unconscious. You were out of it for _five hours._ ”

Jane stared at Darcy, her expression alarmed and incredulous.

“But – it only felt like I was gone for a minute!” Darcy watched as her words registered fully in Jane’s mind. “Wait, I was _unconscious?_ ”

“For five hours,” Darcy reminded her. “The moment we get back to the car I am calling SHIELD, we can get a team out here to look at you.”

“What? No, I’m fine.”

“ _Jane_.” Darcy took a step forward into Jane’s space, meeting Jane’s eyes in order to communicate both sincerity and seriousness. “For all we know alien life-forms crawled into your brain, or something. _You are seeing a SHIELD medical team_.”

Jane looked a little startled by Darcy’s vehemence, but gave in.

“Fine,” she said.

“Good, now come on. John’s got to be seriously wigged out by now.”

The two of them left the building and emerged into the parking lot. John was sitting in the driver’s seat of the car, his expression tense. Darcy scanned him as he spotted her and Jane walking towards him.

Intense relief and gratitude blossomed in his expression, and he scrambled to open the driver’s side door and leap out of the car.

“Darcy! Jane!” John ran towards them. “Fucking hell, you scared the fucking _shit_ out of me! What the hell, guys, it’s been five fucking _hours!_ Where did you _go?_ ”

“Easy,” Darcy said, modulating her voice to sound soothing. “We’re fine.”

“You fucking better be!” John shouted. “Five hours! _Fuck!_ ” He launched himself at Darcy and Jane. Darcy analysed his intentions, and calculated that the probability of being hugged was 97%.

The moment that John made contact, there was a spike in the energy readings coming from Jane. John was blasted back across the parking lot in a burst of dark-coloured energy.

“John!” Darcy ran over to check on him, while Jane stared down at her own hands in shock, swaying slightly where she stood.

“Did I do that?” Jane sounded stunned. Darcy didn’t answer, too busy getting to John’s side.

John groaned and tried to move. Darcy scanned him for signs of injury.

“Jesus,” John groaned. “I feel like I broke my spine. _Ow._ ”

“You’re fine,” said Darcy, helping him get painfully to his feet. “I mean, with that kind of impact involved you can expect deep bruising, but nothing’s broken or anything.”

“Doesn’t feel like it,” John grumbled. “Oh great. It’s starting to rain.”

Darcy scanned their surroundings, and confirmed John’s observation. Water was beginning to fall from the sky, in a light, steady drizzle that was growing heavier by the second.

Darcy identified the sound of a gasp from Jane. She turned around.

Thor – Darcy easily identified him – was standing in full armour, his magnificent cape falling from his shoulders, holding his hammer in one hand. His eyes were on Jane, his expression one of deep worry.

John steadied himself on Darcy’s shoulder, and gave Thor a long, slow look, looking him over from head to foot.

“Who’s he?” John asked quietly.

“Thor,” Darcy answered.

“ _Thor?_ You’re shitting me! _He’s_ the asshole who broke Jane’s heart?”

John’s exclamation was loud enough to carry to Thor, whose head turned to bring John and Darcy into view. As he was looking at them, Jane took several wavering steps forward. Thor glanced back at her, worry mingled with affection in his expression.

“Thor…” Darcy was unable to identify the complex mixture of emotions in Jane’s expression.

“Jane…” Thor started to reach out to her.

Jane slapped him across the face. Thor looked startled.

John let out a chortle of startled laughter, then winced.

“Ow.”

“Sorry, I just needed to make sure you were real,” said Jane. “It’s been a very strange day.”

“I am,” said Thor. “Jane, I–”

Jane slapped him a second time.

“Where _were_ you?” she demanded. Darcy scanned her face, and identified her expression as a mixture of ‘hurt’ and ‘anger’. John snickered quietly by Darcy’s side.

The rain was falling heavily now, except for a magic circle of dryness around Thor and Jane, so Darcy tugged John forward into the dry area. They stood and watched the confrontation between Thor and Jane with great interest.

“Where were you?” Thor countered, his expression deepening into worry again. “Heimdall could not see you, and then I came here in time to see an energy flow from you that is not natural. What happened to you, Jane?”

“I…” Jane looked uncertain for a moment, but rallied. “I was right here where you left me. I was waiting, and then I was crying, and then I went out looking for you… You said you were coming back!”

“I know, I know.” Thor looked contrite. “But the Bifrost was destroyed. The Nine Realms erupted into chaos; wars were raging, marauders were pillaging… I had to put an end to the slaughter.”

Jane’s expression softened a little. Darcy had to admit, that sounded like a logical reason for Thor not to come back before now.

“As excuses go, it’s not… terrible,” Jane said reluctantly. “But I saw you on TV, you were – you were in New York!”

Thor took hold of her hands. He seemed to have forgotten that Darcy and John were there.

“Jane, I fought to protect you from the dangers of my world, but... I was wrong,” he said, staring deeply into her eyes. “I was a fool. But I believe that Fate bought us together. Jane I don’t know where you were or what happened, but I do know this.”

“What?” Jane seemed distracted by Thor’s proximity.

“I know,” Thor reiterated.

“You do?” Jane blinked.

“Do what?” Thor looked vaguely confused.

“What?” Jane moved closer, so that she and Thor had barely an inch of space between them.

Thor leaned in, and the next moment, Jane and Thor were kissing.

“Well, this is awkward,” Darcy said loudly. John was laughing, and going “ _ow, ow_ ,” as his laughter aggravated the minor injuries he had received when Jane blasted him across the parking lot.

“I cannot believe this,” said John, shaking his head. “I’d go wait in the car, except it’s pouring rain out there.”

Darcy marched over to Thor and prodded him in one muscular arm until he stopped kissing Jane, and looked around with a frown to see who was interrupting him.

“Yes?” Thor asked.

“Dude, you need to stop making it rain,” Darcy told him. “Also, have you forgotten that Jane just blasted John across the parking lot with weird energy powers she didn’t have before she vanished?”

“Ah,” said Thor. He blinked, and looked back at Jane. “Yes.” The rain lightened, and then stopped. “Jane, what I observed was most unnatural. We have healers in Asgard who can get to the bottom of this.” He wrapped an arm around Jane. “Hold on.” He looked up to the sky, and Darcy realised what he intended.

“Thor, wait!” Darcy called out, darting forward, but Thor and Jane disappeared in a pillar of light before she could reach them. Darcy and John were left standing alone in the parking lot.

Darcy experienced an emotional response equivalent to the human emotion ‘frustration.’ In order to express her frustration, she stomped the pavement repeatedly with maximum force, fracturing and cratering the concrete.

“Dammit, Thor!” Darcy yelled, shaking a fist at the sky.

“Whoa, chill,” said John.

“Chill your face!” Darcy shouted at him, and resumed stomping a hole in the concrete. She continued until she’d punched through to a second, older layer of concrete below. Then she stopped.

“Are you okay now?” John asked, watching her warily.

“I’m fine.” Darcy’s frustration had diminished slightly.

“Okay then,” said John. “I’m going to get in the car, and drive back to the hotel, and then I’m going to drink something from the minibar, because this has been a really shitty day. Are you coming with me or not?”

In response Darcy began walking towards the car. John let out a huff of breath, and turned and began walking towards the car as well.

“You drive,” he said, tossing Darcy the car keys. Darcy caught them automatically. “I’m just going to sit and try and pretend my back isn’t killing me.”

“Does it hurt much?” Darcy asked, arranging her face into an expression of concern.

John grimaced.

“I’ve had worse,” he admitted, “but it’s not exactly fun.”

Darcy reached out and gently patted his shoulder in a human gesture of sympathy. John gave a crooked smile, and walked around to the passenger side door.

Darcy opened the driver’s side door and climbed into the driver’s seat, accessing GPS and the map of London again, calculating the most direct route to the hotel.

She turned the radio on before she started the engine, and the sound of electric guitar filled the car.

“ _It’s a machine’s world, don’t tell me I ain’t got no soul. When the machines take over, it’s no place for rock’n’roll,”_ sang the lead singer.

John twitched.

“Why don’t we find another station,” he suggested carefully, and changed the radio channel.

“I kind of liked it,” Darcy muttered quietly.

John glanced at her.

“Yeah, that doesn’t reassure me.”

Darcy drove the car out into the street, and began heading back towards their hotel. Jane had just been staying at her mom’s place, but Darcy and John had both rented rooms at a hotel.

“We need to find Erik,” said Darcy, as she drove. “I mean, whatever weird sciency thing was going on there, Erik knew something about it. I mean, that’s why we came out here in the first place. Whatever happened to Jane, it’s probably linked to whatever is going on. We need to find Erik, and find out what’s happening.”

John closed his eyes, leaning his head back against the back of his seat.

“You can do that while I’m napping, right? Google him or some shit like that?”

John looked tired. Darcy regretted that he had been hurt, but there was nothing that she could do to change that, so dwelling on it was unproductive. Instead, she focused on establishing a wireless connection through the nearest wireless internet hub.

“Something like that,” said Darcy. “He’s gone missing, so the first thing I’m going to do is check the hospital registers and police databases. If he’s been hurt or arrested, or if someone’s filed an official missing person’s report, I’ll find that information.”

“Great.” John’s eyes were still shut. “Wake me when we get to the hotel.” His physical indicators slowly altered as his body entered sleep patterns.

Darcy watched him out of the end of her visual range for a while. John was especially vulnerable in sleep, unaware of his surroundings, helpless to defend himself. Darcy experienced a strange emotional response that she couldn’t identify.

Shaking her head at herself, Darcy focused her gaze back on the road, and continued driving.


End file.
